It was the tramp, tramp of the soldiers who were bringing home the Little Colonel's Hero, All the men who had been most interested in his performances the day before, had volunteered to follow Colonel Wayne, and the long line made an imposing showing, as it stretched up the avenue after him.
Lloyd watched the approach from her seat on the porch beside her father.
All the camping party were waiting with her, except the four boys who rode at the head of the procession, Ranald and Malcolm first, then Rob and Keith.

Lloyd hid her eyes as Lad and Tarbaby came into view behind them.
"Look," said her father gently, pointing to the flag-draped burden they drew.

"How much better it was for Hero to have been shot by a soldier and brought home with military honours, than to have met the fate of an ordinary dog--been poisoned, or mangled, by a train, as might have happened, or even died of a painful, feeble old age.

The Major would have chosen this?
so would Hero, if he could have understood." There was more comfort in that thought than in anything that had been said to her before, and Lloyd wiped her eyes, and sat up to watch the ceremony that followed, with a feeling of pride that made her almost cheerful.
On they came to the beat of the muffled drum, halting under a great locust-tree that stood by itself on the lawn, in sight of the library windows, like a giant sentinel.

There the boys dismounted to lower Hero into the grave that Walker and Alec had just finished digging.